A bridge over troubled water: the fate of Oregon Inlet and the Herbert C. Bonner Bridge pits environmentalists against business interests on the Outer Banks.

• Author: Galuszka, Peter
• Position: Cover Story

As the Angel Dawn churns seaward from its home port of Bayboro, the gentle swells of Pamlico Sound give way to choppier waters. Virgil Lockey III spots the broad arch of the Herbert C. Bonner Bridge a mile ahead and, beyond, the Atlantic. It's early March, and he has his 80-foot trawler rigged for flounder. As he nears the bridge, the 43-year-old captain is alarmed by what he doesn't see: "There wasn't any water where the buoys were." He throttles back. There should be 12 feet of water beneath the Angel Dawn, but the trawler lurches to a halt as its keel grinds into the bottom. Beneath Lockey's feet, a 5-knot ebb tide sucks water out of the sound and tugs at the boat's wooden hull. From the other direction, waves from the Atlantic crash over the gunwales and shatter windows. As the engine room floods and the trawler wallows helplessly, Lockey broadcasts a Mayday. Then he and his two crew members squeeze into survival suits.

The Coast Guard gets the call about 2:30 p.m. From a nearby lifesaving station; crews scramble into two boats, but sandbars prevent them from reaching the trawler. They radio for a helicopter from the air station in Elizabeth City, 50 miles away. It's after 4 when the twin-engine H-60 Jayhawk approaches. It dangles its rescue basket and, one by one, hoists the three men. As they look back, the sea already is bashing the Angel Dawn to splinters, another victim of one of the most treacherous passages on the East Coast. Since the 1960s, 25 people have died and 22 boats have been lost in the 1,300-foot-wide gantlet that separates Hatteras Island from the northern Outer Banks. The Angel Dawn is one of five boats capsized in a recent 12-month period.

Oregon Inlet has always been beautiful and treacherous. Now it is in the eye of a man-made tempest over how to deal with natural forces. At stake could be more lives and vessels, not to mention the financial health of the state's $100 million-a-year seafood industry and of its taxpayers, who'll foot the bill for hundreds of millions of dollars in bridge, highway and dredging projects. The problems aren't new, but they've become urgent. In May, the White House Council on Environmental Quality killed a 30-year-old plan to keep the inlet open with jetties to block the shifting sands that choke it. Now plans for one of the longest, most spectacular bridges on the East Coast are gaining momentum, but they face hurdles such as cost and the opposition of many Outer Bankers--including one of the state's most powerful politicians.

Mariners say shoaling, the constant inflow of sand, is making the inlet increasingly dangerous by narrowing channels like the nozzle of a fire hose, increasing the velocity of currents. The Herbert C. Bonner Bridge over the inlet and the highway it carries--N.C. 12--are the only means of land access for tourists, residents, fishermen and others who spend $300 million a year on the Outer Banks. "It's vital that we have access to all of the land south of the Oregon Inlet bridge and that we have access to the ocean through the inlet," County Commissioner Richard Johnson says. "Without it, there's very little difference between Dare and any other county by the ocean."

Controversy centers on two...